To the editor:

These are days of universal Teflon: Charges of bigotry cannot stick. The sole exception occurs when someone blurts out officially forbidden words – words which all but the most obtuse among us have learned to avoid in public. Otherwise, those who charge bigotry are said to be intolerant, playing the race card, sexually immoral, pro-terrorist or even Liberal. Indeed, merely uttering the word bigot proves oneself to be a bigot.

Corrupt political discourse led us to this point. Massive successes of the Republican Southern Strategy revealed an unpalatable truth: Hot button slogans aimed at swing voters are lethally effective. Swing voters being, on average, our least thoughtful voters, the slogans must be dumbed down. Since swing voters don’t pay much attention, the slogans must trigger strong prejudices. These prejudices are repositioned as conventional wisdom, and voters are provided an armada of defenses to repel all charges of bigotry.

We live in times of linguistic poverty. Once-useful words like bigotry fail. We must return to first principles. To wit: It is wrong, cruel and ultimately self-defeating to assume, without careful qualification, anything important about the character or worth of any large group of human beings.

As does George Gurley when he opines: “Islam is inflamed with messianic energy and absolute certainty. … Its ambitious, angry clerics see the West as decadent, weak, vulnerable,” and more in the same vein (Journal-World, Jan. 7). These ignorant statements confuse all Islam with militant Islamism, support self-defeating American policies, and turn many Muslims against us.

David Burress,

Lawrence